Donna's life was worth more

KILLER Stephen Ellis will be free in less than three years after a jury decided a series of taunts provoked him into strangling his fiancée Donna Rowe.

Ellis, left, was yesterday cleared of murdering Miss Rowe, 29, in a verdict that left her grieving family devastated at Oxford Crown Court.

The 26-year-old truck driver had strangled the former nurse after a row at a family wedding last summer just six weeks before the couple's own marriage.

Ellis was convicted of manslaughter after claiming he was provoked into losing his self-control and sentenced to seven years. Miss Rowe's family said yesterday they did not believe the sentence was justice.

DONNA ROWE and Stephen Ellis had planned almost every last detail of their lives together.

All the arrangements for their

wedding last September were done bar minor details and this year they should have been trucking around Europe as a husband-and-wife haulage team.

But in just a few hours last August Ellis destroyed it all.

Today he is beginning a seven-year sentence for killing the woman he claimed to have loved, while Miss Rowe's family are devastated after he was cleared by a jury of murdering her.

As many people involved in the case have said over the past few days, there were no winners.

Ellis, 26, was found not guilty of murdering Miss Rowe after he had claimed she provoked him into losing his self-control during a row at a

family wedding.

He strangled her with the flex of a hairdryer and with his hands. Judge Julian Hall, placing some of the blame for the row on Miss Rowe's drinking that day and the couple's heavy use of cocaine, sentenced Ellis to seven years.

Because he has spent 10 months on remand already, Ellis is likely to be free in less than three years - before he reaches the age of 30.

The sentence outraged Miss Rowe's mother Belinda, her sister Shirley Ives and the other family and friends who have spent the past week at Oxford Crown Court.

As the jury delivered its verdicts, both Mrs Rowe and Mrs Ives, sitting one row back from Ellis's mother Janet, began to weep.

Mrs Rowe was clearly distraught. Mrs Ives sank her head for the next few minutes, lowering it even further in obvious distress as Judge Hall gave his sentence.

Ellis, a former public schoolboy, stared impassively from the dock throughout.

Close family friend Mark Ayres, who grew up with the two Rowe girls, said: "This verdict is not what we had hoped for and coming to terms with the decision of the jury will be very

difficult for the family.

"Donna's life has been deemed to be worth seven years.

"In fact Stephen is likely to be out in three and a half years. He's served one year which makes two-and-a-half years.

"For a brutal murder this does not seem like British justice to us.

"Donna was a wonderful daughter and sister with no secrets from her family. Her openness was all part of what made her so special to us.

"There are no winners in this situation and as a family we are still grieving our loss."

During the trial Ellis's barrister, Richard Ferguson, QC, told the jury Ellis had been provoked into losing all self-controland so he was guilty only of manslaughter and not murder.

The jury of seven women and five men had been told they were not setting a precedent but would be saying what the community believed was reasonable behaviour.

After the verdict, Judge Hall told Ellis: "This is a terrible tragedy.

"You killed somebody you loved.

"Before you killed her there was not a scrap of evidence you were not a devoted couple looked to your own wedding.

"It all went wrong in that short space of time."

The couple took cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis the night before at their home in Axbridge Road in Whitley, and a "pick-me-up" of cocaine that day.

Judge Hall said drink and probably the "substantial" recreational drug use played a part.

Ellis claimed Miss Rowe verbally attacked him for putting his family first, not doing enough for her and taunting that she preferred her

previous boyfriend and had "chosen the wrong cousin".

Ellis had previously slashed a bully when he was a teenager with a Stanley knife and Judge Hall added: "I accept your remorse is genuine.

"Half of me likes to think you will never do anything like this again but then half of me says no-one would have dreamed you could behave in this way before the event so I can't